A Great Salvation Behind a Fraudulent Divorce
By Xiaofei
One day, I unexpectedly heard about a great blow a relative had suffered: Her husband had an affair and divorced her. Now she had lost her senses, and was running about outside every day and constantly putting out her hand for something to eat when she met anyone. Seeing her state, her parents cried all day long. On hearing this, I was deeply shocked and my heart couldn’t calm down for a long time. I had sympathy for her, and meanwhile I couldn’t help but think of my own experience, which made me sigh with emotion. If I hadn’t been saved by God, I might have been more wretched than her. I thanked God, for He brought me hope when I was desperate …
When I married my husband, we were very poor. Through several years of hard struggle, our life gradually became affluent and we bought a car and a house. My husband treated me very tenderly and took care of me very well. Looking at my two lovely sons and my husband whom I could rely on, I felt so happy and joyful in my heart. I really hoped that such happy days could last forever. However, just when I was most immersed in happiness, a terrible fraud was stealthily approaching me, something I never would have believed possible.
One winter day in 2010, it was extremely cold. My husband came back and said to me seriously: “A business I invested in has failed, and I have a lot of debts. If the debt collectors come down on us, our house will be confiscated by them, and you and our children will also be involved. So after thinking hard about this, I got an idea: Let’s do a sham divorce. You get the ownership of all the possessions, including the car and the house, and I get nothing. In this way, if the debt collectors come to me for their money, we won’t lose our property. Because as long as we are divorced, we will have no formal relationship. They won’t dare to interfere with you.” I didn’t take any of this seriously, and thought that no matter how much money he had lost, we could work hard to pay it back. So I said to him jokingly in a casual tone: “How much money do you owe? Is there any need for this? If worst comes to worst, we can sell our house to pay the debts. Wherever you go, I and the boys will follow you.” “But it’s difficult to buy a house and make money in the future, and we have two sons,” he said unhappily, frowning. “We’ll just do a sham divorce, okay? When the situation isn’t so tense, we can remarry one or two years later. Don’t tell our relatives and friends about this, in case they worry about us.” At that time, I honestly thought I should share weal and woe with him, so I insisted on not divorcing. But he was very angry and stood by the window. It seemed that if I didn’t agree with him he would jump off the balcony (we lived on the sixth floor). In the end, I was unable to dissuade him, so I agreed to it, thinking that he was caring about our family and we would remarry after going through some hard days.
After finishing the divorce proceedings, we still lived together as usual and I didn’t feel anything different until one day, two months later, when our family of four went shopping together. My husband wanted to buy some tea, but he said he didn’t have enough money. So I immediately took some money out of my purse and said: “Here you are.” Unexpectedly, he said coldly, “We are divorced. How can I still spend your money?” My heart jumped suddenly and I thought: “Why is he taking the sham divorce so seriously? Aren’t we still a family in his heart? It’s so strange.” I faintly felt that this matter was not as simple as I had imagined. I constantly thought wild thoughts all the way home. When we got home, I started to sulk. I, who had never drunk before, drank a lot of wine that day. After that, he began to give me the silent treatment. During that time, he always came home very late and went to bed immediately after supper. He greeted my sons, but didn’t speak to me.
About a week later, I passed by my husband’s company when out on business. I saw there was a new blue car without a license plate there. It was the same as the one which was often parked behind our house those days. It reminded me that my husband once said his company had just allocated him a car. Was this his car? So I walked to the car, and found that its door was open. A woman was sitting in the front passenger seat. Then I asked her: “Is this XX’s (my husband’s name) car?” She replied: “Yes, it is.” I thought she was probably a saleswoman in my husband’s company. Then I got in the car. After a while, my husband came. When he saw me, his face darkened immediately. It seemed he wanted to say something but bit back his words. Then I took out of the car’s temporary license from the back of the driving seat. I saw that the owner of the car was not my husband but a woman, which even more aroused my suspicions.
Later, I asked my younger sister to help me get information on that woman. She said that woman was married and her husband had the same name as my husband. They applied for the marriage certificate in January 2011. Hearing this news, which struck me like a bolt from the blue, I sat there motionless. I felt that my whole body was numb, but I was more lucid than ever. At that moment, I finally figured out that the sham divorce was nothing but an elaborate fraud. It turned out that he had long been having an affair with that woman, so he dumped me and married her. I was so silly that I believed him. I devoted myself to him without the slightest mistrust and without taking any precautions. I wholeheartedly wanted to stand by him through thick and thin, whereas he used my trust in him to cheat on me. In one moment, feelings of humiliation, of sadness, of grievance, and of hatred toward him all welled up in my heart at once. I felt I was so stupid and pitiful because I was totally unaware that the person whom I once trusted in most and was closest to had deceived me.
When my husband returned home, I put the evidence in front of him. Nevertheless, he remained very calm and still tried to lie to me and act innocent, obstinately refusing to acknowledge the facts. So I completely exploded with anger, cried, shouted at him and even wanted to kill myself in front of him. He also hollered at me then. We quarreled more and more fiercely, until the police came. During that time, my heart was filled with so much hatred that I even wanted to kill my husband. But both of my sons were still so young. Could they have borne such a blow? I also wanted to ruin him before his colleagues but I feared they would laugh at me. … I lost the hope to live on, and thought that maybe I wouldn’t be so miserable if I died. But then I thought of my pitiful boys: “They have lost their father, and would they be able to live on if I died now? No, I can’t be so cruel.” So, I stayed alive for my sons, though I struggled desperately. When I felt very miserable, I spoke about my suffering to my relatives and friends. However, they didn’t understand or comfort me at all, and said I was so foolish not to have discussed the matter with others prior to the divorce. During that period, I spoke about my suffering with everyone I met and cried in front of them, as if I was simply a madwoman. In a month, I lost more than 10kg in weight.
With my younger sister’s help, I took my husband to court. However, so heartless was my husband that he turned against me completely. When we originally filed for divorce, he clearly said the house and the car belonged to me, but now he did not admit to saying that. He colluded with his mother and claimed that the house was bought by her before our marriage, so it was pre-marital property. Because the court couldn’t deal with the problem, the case was delayed again and again. My husband’s infidelity and cheating had already left me bruised and battered, and then he played tricks to dispute my property, not caring for our children or me at all. His ruthlessness made me completely desperate. Those days, I was like a walking corpse and lived in a muddled daze. I had no hope, but every time I thought of death I worried about my children. At that time, life was worse than death.
I had lived in this way for some time until one day, at the end of 2012, when a regular customer, Wang Fang, came to my shop. Seeing me slumped over, she asked me what was wrong with me. So I told her about my suffering. She comforted me, saying sincerely that only God can help people out of pain. She also shared with me her experience of how God led her to get rid of the pain of her unhappy marriage. Hearing this, I thought believing in God is pretty good. Later, I also started to lead a church life.
Once, in a meeting, we saw the following words of God: “He does not want to sacrifice a single soul, and He does not wish to lose one single soul more; man, meanwhile, cares not for his own fate. So who loves you most in this world? You do not love yourself, you do not know to cherish or treasure your own life—God has the greatest love for man. People may be insensible of this, and they may think they love themselves—but just what kind of love do they have for themselves? Only the love of God is genuine love. Going forward, you will slowly come to appreciate what true love is” (“Do You Know God’s Love for Mankind?”). After reading God’s words, I was moved to tears. My husband, who had lived with me for more than ten years, became disloyal so quickly. In order to marry another woman, he went so far as to put on a big show to cheat on me; he really had me wrapped around his little finger. Finally, he played tricks to get the house without considering our children and me. In the past, I felt he was concerned about me and loved me most. But so-called “love” couldn’t stand the test of reality and desires at all. When one’s own interests are involved, one’s love can instantly turn into a desire to cheat and scheme. After my husband’s betrayal, I began to torment myself. Sometimes I didn’t eat for several days. I even wanted to end my miserable life. I didn’t love myself, nor did I cherish my life; nevertheless, God still cared for me and took mercy on me. He was unwilling to let me continue to degenerate, so just when I was feeling the most miserable and helpless, He brought me before Him through the sister preaching the gospel to me. It is because of God’s love for me that now I can enjoy the sweetness and nourishment of His words and receive His comfort and protection. In the house of God, I, who had felt weary, miserable and desperate, have gained great comfort and the hope to live on. It was necessary to come this far to finally see that only God truly loves me and takes mercy on me. When I thought of this, tears flowed down my cheeks.
Afterward, by reading God’s words, praying and praising God, I felt my life was gradually fulfilled. However, whenever I thought of my husband’s cheating and infidelity, I still got very angry. Unconsciously, my heart filled with hatred again and I lived in pain. God knew what I needed. He used His words to enlighten and guide me at all times, which helped me to get rid of the suffering step by step.
One day, I saw these words from God: “These trends arise one after another, and they all carry an evil influence that continually debases mankind, causing people to lose conscience, humanity and reason, weakening their morals and their quality of character ever more, to the extent that we can even say that the majority of people now have no integrity, no humanity, and neither do they have any conscience, much less any reason. … The majority of people, however, will be continually infected, assimilated, and attracted by this kind of trend in a state of unawareness, until they all unknowingly and involuntarily accept it and become submerged in it and controlled by it. One after another, such trends cause people, who are not of sound body and mind, do not know what the truth is, and cannot differentiate between positive and negative things, to happily accept them as well as the life views and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them about how to approach life and the way to live that Satan ‘bestows’ on them, and they have neither the strength nor the ability, much less the awareness, to resist” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”). God’s words made me understand that my husband had an affair due to Satan’s corruption. It is Satan that creates the various evil trends and causes mankind to be intoxicated by them unknowingly, so people become more and more evil and degenerate. At first, my husband was honest and knew his place, but after he started working for the insurance company doing underwriting, he was often engaged in social activities and started going to KTV bars and other places of recreation. There were too many inducements and temptations around him. In this dark and evil society, it is a common occurrence that men find mistresses or lovers. Those who don’t follow this trend will be looked down upon by others. Influenced by these evil ideas and philosophies, such as “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all,” and “The red flag at home does not fall, and the colored flags outside flutter in the breeze,” mankind become more and more evil and degenerate, and thus many people betray their families and tear other families apart. They have lost the conscience, reason and morality that a normal person should have. The culprit in all this is Satan. When I understood all this, I knew my husband was also a victim assimilated by satanic, poisonous trends, so I no longer hated him as before. Later, I learned that after my ex-husband married that woman, the pressure of his family life and work became huge for him, which made me see that when living under the domain of Satan we can only be fooled and afflicted by it and have no happiness to speak of. Even if one’s desires are satisfied momentarily, one will still feel pain later. After understanding all this, I gradually put aside my hatred toward him. After being provided with God’s words, I felt calmer and calmer inside.
Although I didn’t make a fuss over my husband’s betrayal anymore, not long after, a staff member of the court and the lawyer began contacting me again and again. They said that the case had been delayed for a long time, and urged us to close it by conciliation. However, my husband and that woman had had a child, and he tried every means to make things difficult for me and refused to register the transfer of the house to me. In the face of his intransigence, I could do nothing. However, if he didn’t transfer the house to me, my children and I would have no house to live in. Thinking of this, I couldn’t help worrying about our future.
Once, in a meeting, a sister read a passage of God’s words to me based on my circumstances: “Of everything that occurs in the universe, there is nothing in which I do not have the final say. Is there anything that is not in My hands? Whatever I say is done” (“Chapter 1” of God’s Words to the Entire Universe). She fellowshiped this: “All matters and all things are in God’s hands. Today, regarding the matter of the house, we should accept it as being from God and obey His sovereignty and arrangements. Just like when all of Job’s property was taken away by robbers: He didn’t feel bad after losing it. Instead, he prayed to God and submitted to God’s manipulations and arrangements and he stood witness for God. And God granted Job much more than he’d had before. From this we see that whether one will suffer loss or obtain blessings is in God’s hands. Therefore, whether your husband will agree to transfer the house into your name is also in God’s hands. We should entrust this matter to God, obey His orchestrations and arrangements, experience His work and thus achieve knowledge of God’s sovereignty. In this way we can live a freer life.” After hearing God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, I was able to relieve myself of many of the burdens in my heart and was willing to give this thing to God and obey His orchestrations and arrangements. Gradually, I was no longer disturbed by this matter all day. Whenever I started to worry about it again, I quickly came before God to pray and read His words, and then my heart would calm down and be free of disturbances. I felt I lived more and more freely.
When I truly let go of these, I saw God’s wonderful deeds. In 2015, the insurance company which my husband worked in closed down, and many people were looking for him to collect their debts. So he, together with his wife and toddler, went into hiding. For fear of the house being confiscated to pay his debts, he came to me and transferred the ownership to me. At that time, I was full of gratitude for God and once again felt God’s mercy and care for me. In the past, my husband made every attempt to refuse to register the transfer of the house, but then he encountered a financial problem and was forced to do it. This was all God’s wise orchestrations and arrangements. But then I thought: “If we hadn’t divorced, it would be me evading debts and hiding from place to place with him, and my sons and I wouldn’t be able to live peacefully now.” Although I was so ignorant that I allowed myself to be cheated and had to live in agony for a long time, through my experiences I finally understood that God had protected me in a miraculous fashion, and God’s love was hidden within the situations I encountered. The more I thought about it, the more I felt God is so lovely and good. I couldn’t help but think of a passage of God’s words: “When one looks back on the road one has walked, when one recollects every phase of one’s journey, one sees that at every step, whether one’s journey was arduous or smooth, God was guiding one’s path, planning it out. It was God’s meticulous arrangements, His careful planning, that led one, unknowingly, to today. To be able to accept the Creator’s sovereignty, to receive His salvation—what great fortune that is!” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). When I was pondering the words of God, scene after scene of the past appeared in my mind. In the past, I sacrificed a lot for my family and believed that my husband cared for me most. I thought as long as I could live a peaceful life like that I would be satisfied. I didn’t know how to live a meaningful life. If the divorce fraud hadn’t happened, I couldn’t have come before God and enjoyed the provision of His words. I certainly couldn’t have recognized God’s love and mercy for me, clearly seen through the source of the world’s evil, or understood the meaning of life from God’s words. Recalling each step I had walked, I finally understood: On the surface, hardship is a bad thing, but actually, there are God’s good intentions in it. When my husband refused to pass the ownership of the house to me, I was helpless. But when I prayed to God and relied on Him, when I was willing to submit to His orchestrations and arrangements, I saw His wonderful deeds. From this, I have gained some understanding of God’s authority and have also seen that only God is my reliance. It is God’s blessing and grace that I can walk to this day, live in God’s house and have a happy life. It is God’s mercy that has comforted my wounded heart, and allowed me to have an opportunity of pursuing the truth and being saved. But for God’s salvation of me, I would have possibly been fooled by Satan and become a madwoman or even died.
With these thoughts in mind, I suddenly burst into a hymn of life experience: “If I Were Not Saved by God”: “If I were not saved by God, I would still be drifting in this world, struggling hard and painfully in sin; every day gets bleak and hopeless. If I were not saved by God, I’d still be crushed below the devil’s feet, snared in sin and its enjoyments, ignorant of what my life would be. If I were not saved by God, I’d be without my blessings here today, much less know why we should live on or the meaning of our lives. …”